The Standup The Secret of the AWS Outage
Dec 30, 2025
In this intriguing discussion, Casey Muratori, a software engineer and storyteller, shares an insider's perspective on a recent AWS outage. He recounts a bizarre series of events that led to the incident, including a fateful trip to Guitar Center where he overheard a shocking confession. The conversation dives into the complexities of AWS's postmortem, legacy code dilemmas, and why companies often downplay messy root causes. With a mix of personal anecdotes and technical details, Casey sheds light on the quirks of software engineering and the repercussions of legacy systems.
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Overheard Confession In Guitar Center
- Casey overheard a man in Guitar Center claim he caused the AWS DynamoDB outage after being confronted about legacy code.
- The man said Amazon called him because his 2012 utility was deleting configuration files in production and they needed a password.
Postmortem Explanation Felt Incomplete
- The official DynamoDB postmortem described a planner/enactor race that left configurations deleted and unrecoverable.
- Casey found that hand-wavy explanation unsatisfying and wanted a deeper technical account.
Legacy Copy Tool Went Rogue
- The man claimed he wrote a small 2012 copy utility that later ran in prod and sometimes deleted files after copying.
- Amazon allegedly phoned him frantic to stop the tool and asked for the old password he still remembered.